Opposition threatens to unplug digital copyright legislation.

OTTAWA – The federal government’s proposal to make consumers liable
for legal damages of up to $5,000 if they break digital locks to copy movies,
video games and electronic books for their own personal use appears dead on
arrival – with all three opposition parties on Tuesday speaking out against
this key provision of the Conservative’s copyright bill.

The controversial legislation to modernize Canada’s copyright law is
expected to clear a key parliamentary hurdle as early as this week when MPs
vote to send it to a House of Commons committee for closer scrutiny. Critics
for the Liberals, the Bloc Quebecois and the New Democrats all stood up in the
House of Commons Tuesday to support updating the law, but said they will be
proposing amendments to the digital encryption provisions before a final vote.

Unless the Conservatives win over at least one opposition party, the bill
cannot pass the House of Commons.

Citing “concerns” over the bill’s technological protection measures,
Liberal industry critic Marc Garneau said any copyright law “must allow
Canadians who have legitimately purchased a CD or a DVD or other product, the
ability to transfer their purchase onto personal devices such as an iPod, or
make a personal backup copy on their computer, so long as they are not doing so
for the purposes of sale or transfer to others. We do not believe (the bill)
achieves this principle,” Garneau told the House of Commons.

The legislation, sponsored jointly by Industry Minister Tony Clement and
Heritage Minister James Moore, legalizes such everyday practices as using a
personal video recorder to record a TV show for later viewing or copying music
from a purchased CD to an MP3 player – but only if there are no digital locks
on the material.

And that’s a big problem, said Charlie Angus of the NDP.

The bill “offers the public rights in the same way that a roadside carny
offers you fair odds on finding the pea in a shell game. It looks pretty good
until you buy in and then become victim to a legislative sleight of hand. All
the rights provided in this bill can be overridden by any corporate interest
through the imposition of a digital lock. It is one thing to make it illegal to
break a digital lock to steal content or engage in commercial theft,” Angus
told the House of Commons.

“It is a whole different matter to state that the protection digital lock
can impede and override rights that have been defined by Parliament and the
courts. The Conservatives are saying that the only rights you will have are the
rights that a corporate computer code decides to give you,” said Angus.

Added Bloc MP Carole Lavallee: “This bill will do more harm than good.”

Both the Bloc and the NDP also raised concerns over the bill’s status quo
approach to Canada’s private copying levy provisions. Introduced in the
copyright law in 1997, the principle behind a 29 cent levy on purchases of a
blank tape or a compact disc is artists and other copyright holders should be
paid for material they create.

Both parties say the levy language should be updated or amended from “blank
audio-recording mediums” to cover devices Canadians now use to copy music,
namely MP3 players.

The Conservatives are adamantly opposed to what they call an “iPod tax.”
During the Tuesday debate in the House of Commons, the Liberals didn’t commit
to supporting a change to the levy, which now applies to tapes and CDs.

There will also likely be amendments proposed at the House of Commons
industry committee dealing with aspects of the bill’s extension of fair dealing
to cover education, satire and parody – meaning students, educators, artists
and satirists can break copyright under limited circumstances.

Under the bill, “students who take long-distance courses will be forced to
destroy their class notes after 30 days. Teachers will be forced to destroy
their online class plans after every semester. This is the digital equivalent
of telling universities to burn the textbooks at the end of every session. What
kind of government would force students engaged in digital learning to burn
their class notes?” asked Angus.

In response to criticism from all three opposition parties, Moore said he
was open to amendments so long as they don’t undermine the government’s
“balanced” approach to copyright.

The bill also proposes to give copyright owners stronger legal tools to shut
down “pirate websites” in Canada that support file-sharing. The government is
also proposing a criminal penalty of up to $1 million for serious cases where
pirates crack digital encryptions for commercial use.